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FORGIVENESS IS SOME SHOULDER ON ROAD

I’m thinking enough time has passed that I can write this.

You see, on the days that I believe in God, I think God just eye rolls when you do something while looking over your own shoulder to see if God sees you doing that thing. Sort of like being caught in the midst of Spiritual Virtue Signaling.

I was involved in a commemoration at a model aero event. This commemoration was a circled-gathering of souls who, when asked, would speak the name and give a small tribute to a modeler that had passed in the preceding 364 days. I had one fellow I loved from my area. Another guy had three from his. I asked to take one particular one of his, and it wasn’t to distribute the load. I chose this one man, because I had to.

This guy was a talented craftsman. A mentor to many, including 3 close friends of mine - all stupefying modelers...A Veteran. And one of the most horrifyingly mean and racist people I have ever come to know:

~ I wrote a song about a guy *taking a knee because he needed to tie his shoe*, about which he posted publicly ...oh, by the way, you’re an above-average modeler but a below-average singer...”

~ When I queried him why why he’d publicly say such cruel stuff about me, he proceeded to taunt me with one period or comma in private Facebook messages for weeks.

~ In a live setting I heard him railing and loudly proclaiming with disgust to a gathering of people that his town had a gay woman for mayor.

~ Another gathering of people saw a guitar come out and begin to be passed around. I kept it aviation with Dear Amelia.. I recalled him saying how he knew many tunes and used to play out some himself. The guitar came to him, and out of all the tunes he claimed to know, in front of all these people, he played “Bluetail Fly”, looking squarely at me the whole time. If you don’t recognize the title, you’ll recognize this repeated chorus:

"Jimmy crack corn and I don’t care (3X). My master’s gone away”.

I carry hurt and humility like that longer than one should. Wanna get me mad? Tell me to “Just let it go…” And I carry it.

So when news came that this man, at 90+ years old, had been robbed, murdered in his home, stuffed in a tarp, driven miles away and dumped by an alleged woman of interest, it broke me in strange ways and places. Words like karma, comeuppance, what-comes-around, all came but were fleeting. I’m both angry and human. I can do both, and then some.

When I stood at this commemoration and found myself caringly saying his name and how he was “irascible but brilliant, selfless mentor to many, and would be sorely missed in this community”, I was rescuing my dignity, my love of the best of us, my love of myself.

Mine.

So if God rolls his eyes at my telling the world about my hard fought, momentarily elevated human status, so be it. I’m thinking maybe if I move someone else to exercise the peace and kindness that lives over their own shoulder, the Big Deity can cut eye and “tsk tsk” their teeth too for all I care.

Fine with me.